By Mike McClary

Max is Back; Who’s Going?

Posted on May 29, 2010

Two weeks ago I wrote that the Tigers had few options for the struggling Max Scherzer.

Given their inconsistent rotation, I couldn’t see them sending him to the minors.

Then again, who knew he’d be as abysmally bad as he was in his final start on May 14: five IP, six hits, six earned runs, three homers against the Red Sox. After that performance the club had no choice but to send him to Triple-A.

Scherzer has been lights out in two Toledo starts: 15 innings, one run, four hits, 17 strikeouts and a 0.60 ERA. It certainly will be interesting to see how he fares on Sunday agains the A’s.

Now, the question without an answer at this point is, of course, who gets moved out to make room for Scherzer. There are a few candidates, none of them surprising:

Armando Galarraga — He’s been anything but stellar since being recalled and has a minor-league option.

Brad Thomas — He’ll likely stick around because he’s a wrong-hander but he’s survived this far, so who knows?

Ryan Perry — The kid’s had a miserable week but has been reliable for most of the year. Will his two bad outings this week convince the Tigers he needs a visit to the Glass City?

Don Kelly — Jim Leyland loves the guy so that works in Kelly’s favor. He has no remaining options which means he’d have to clear waivers, and that ain’t happening.

Under different circumstances, you could see them sending Alex Avila but there’s no viable option in the minors.

2 Comments

are you serious? it was obviously going to be willis, and you didn’t even mention him. they can’t keep sending out a guy that is a train wreck waiting to happen in every outing. i like dontrelle, everyone does, but enough was enough. you can’t keep pitching a guy when you don’t even know if he is going to be able to throw any strikes. this isn’t little league. the tigers are trying to contend. they have to pay his contract regardless, so that wasn’t even an issue at this point. he got some kind of mental block, and just couldn’t conquer it. i wish him well, but i think we have seen dontrelle willis pitch in the majors for the last time. it is possible that some lowly team may give him a shot, hoping to roll a 7, but i doubt it.